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Archive for March, 2010

For now, it’s being waged quietly below the surface as party operatives, consultants, computer wonks and legislative analysts pore over emerging census data and preliminary maps charting population changes.

But in the coming months, the battle over congressional and legislative reapportionment will explode into full view as Republicans and Democrats plunge into a power struggle played out at least once every decade — transforming population changes into control of the statehouse and Texas’ delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives.

With its population expected to grow to more than 25 million, the Lone Star State appears on track to pick up at least three, and possibly four, new seats in the House of Representatives, the largest gain of any state.

As Democrats ramp up, Republicans are finally catching up with the formation of a new group that features some high-powered GOP players. Last month, the Republican State Leadership Committee, led by former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, launched its REDistricting MAjority Project (REDMAP).

“We want to make sure Republican legislators have pens in their hands,” former Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds of New York, who served as National Republican Congressional Committee chairman, told Roll Call. Reynolds and others are quick to point out that the redistricting process starts with controlling as many legislative chambers as possible.

Reynolds is vice chairman of the RSLC and heading up REDMAP, which is organized as a 527 and has a budget of $20 million for non-federal races this November. Even if the FEC allows members to raise money for the trust, current members still could not get involved with a 527 such as REDMAP or Foundation for the Future.

REDMAP’s formation relieves some tension on the Republican side. Traditionally, the RNC has coordinated the GOP’s redistricting effort, relying heavily on soft money. In the aftermath of the campaign overhaullaw, the party was forced to completely restructure its redistricting effort. The RNC will play more of an advisory and educational role this time around.

The 2010 census forms are arriving in America’s mailboxes. When the results are in they will show that America remains a nation on the move. People are flowing westward and southward over the last ten years as they have for generations.

For most of the past decade, the allure of space, affordable housing and economic opportunity – not to mention warmer weather – has brought people to the West and South, often at the expense of their northern and midwestern counterparts.

Though that movement slowed with the recent recession and housing bust, changes undergone since 2000 are still poised to alter the county’s political landscape and touch off some heated battles. The next round of redistricting following the census will re-allocate congressional districts and electoral votes among the states.

Once again the South and West will gain some political clout while some districts in the north will vanish, taking influence along with them. If geography is indeed destiny, then America’s future will be increasingly determined by the Sun Belt.

In politics, the crayon is mightier than the ballot. A political mapmaker can do more to change the power structure than a herd of consultants with fat bank accounts behind them. And 2011 will be the Year of the Mapmakers.

They’ll take the new census numbers — Texas is expected to have a population of more than 25 million — and use them to draw new congressional and legislative districts for the state. The last time this was done, in 2003, Republican mappers took control of the Texas House by peeling away enough seats from the Democrats to give the GOP the numbers it needed for a majority.

Lose the battle but win the war—that is the redeeming hope congressional leaders offer to their rank-and-file members on the coming votes on the Obama health-care plan.

While diehards still insist that a government takeover of health care will be a net winner this fall, more and more Democrats understand this is a career-ending vote. And so their leadership presents them with the following proposition: Do the right thing and over the long run the power of our party will be stronger as the workers in roughly one-sixth of the U.S. economy will behave more like public employee union members.